


Proof of Concept

by MegumitheGreat



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Brakebills (The Magicians), Closure, Coping mechanism, Fillory (The Magicians), M/M, Season 4 Spoilers, Self-Indulgent, Spoilers, TV Series, TV adaptation, What-If, mirror world, scene insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 19:35:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18597991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegumitheGreat/pseuds/MegumitheGreat
Summary: [SPOILERS]After finally pulling the Monster out of Eliot and trapping it within one of the enchanted bottles Margo had brought back from Fillory, Quentin has a short reunion with Eliot before going to the Mirror World.





	Proof of Concept

**Author's Note:**

> THIS WORK IS PURELY SELF-INDULGENT AND IS HELPING ME CHILL ABOUT THE ENDING.
> 
> So I'm a week late to the season 4 finale, and I was NOT prepared for that ending. A lot of fans are upset, and I am as well, but I respect Jason Ralph's decision (from what I've heard, he and the writers mutually agreed) but I'm upset with just how...all over the place it was? One of the reasons is that Eliot and Quentin didn't get a proper reunion (Queliot or not), and considering that had been one of the bigger points of this season, I would have liked even Quentin looming over his bleeding body as Eliot calls Margo "Bambi". I digress.
> 
> To that effect, I wrote something of a "this could have happened given that the bottles' ability to hold the Monsters seems like plot convenience to me, but whatever". If anything, after writing this on a whim, I think now a reunion would have been too painful. I mean, Q helped everyone with their problems, and since Eliot confessed to a memory version of him to overcome the fear of commitment and attachment when he had been alone for his whole life... Anyway, I just wrote this so I could have some sort of closure...until Season 5.

It would only take a few calculated seconds. Only a few. That was the thought running through Quentin’s, Margo’s, Alice’s, and Penny’s minds. The Monster within Eliot was still confused by the spell that Dean Fogg had cast on him when he transported him to the woods in Fillor, and Margo’s detachable fairy eye kept watch on him. He was mumbling to himself in Eliot’s voice. There were happy things in Fillory aside from the trauma and death and horrific things that magic allowed. Things that were calming and peaceful—like the quiet that enraptured him at that moment even if he was emotionally constipated. The Monster’s Sister had already been captured, and he was forlorn at the notion that all his hard work to bring her back had gone to waste. All he wanted, before ripping apart every single Librarian and devouring any Magician or Hedge Witch that came for him, was to simply enjoy a brisk day with the only family he had left. Murdering populations and restoring their powers could have waited, and now look at their situation.

Alone, lost in an opiate forest with a body that was progressively falling apart because he cared so little for it but needed it to guarantee Quentin’s cooperation, the Monster almost seemed like he had lost the will to go on.

But perhaps that was exactly what Coldwater and his friends required to enact the plan and finally save one of their dearest friends of all. The plan had to be implemented now, or they were doomed to lose that opportunity and die.

Quentin and Alice jumped from their hiding spot, surprising the Monster and forcing him to spring from his resting spot at the thin roots of one of the trees. He was prepared to finally kill them for their insubordination and sealing away his precious sister, and he would have had Penny and Margo not travelled behind him and called his attention from their friends.

With one quick swing, Margo lodged the magic axes—she dubbed Sorrow and Sorrow—into Eliot’s abdomen. It was a pain that the Monster hadn’t known for a long time, but despite that, he roared in agony. The very golden essence that erupted from the deep and gushing wound was quickly trapped in the enchanted bottles that the former High King Margo had brought back from the desert south of Fillory. Quentin and Alice worked together, as did Kady and her Hedge Witches and Zelda of the Library and Dean Fogg and his best students at Brakebills, to lock the bottle as tight as possible for as long as possible. They had to keep casting, twisting their fingers and waving their hands to ensure that neither of the Monsters could escape. There was only one way get rid of them, as Quentin and Josh had learned from the rather boring corporate office cubicle that was the Realm of the Old Gods. It was a place that Alice did not want to go. It was a place that only Penny could take them to. And it was a place that would destroy anyone that dared to cast their magic within.

It was called the Seam, a small pocket where everything was reversed and lifeless and residing behind an ominous door in the Mirror World. Once something went in, it could never come out. The Monsters couldn’t be killed, only contained, and those enchanted bottles could only hold them for so long. The wards placed on them were more ephemeral.

But, as pressed for time as they were, Quentin wanted to take care of something first. It was long overdue over months of watching Eliot wither away. Now he was bleeding on the forest floor as Margo desperately tried to control the crimson river pouring from his stomach. 

In some sort of adrenaline-fueled idea, Penny did carry them to Brakebills University Hospital, and after some time—without using magic like Margo had hoped—Eliot was on the road to recovery. They didn’t have so long to talk with him, but Quentin had to see him. It was a suicide mission if things went awry, and if there was some reason to use magic in the Mirror World, he wanted to talk to Eliot before then.

“Quentin, we need to go _now_ ,” Alice told him. “These wards—we can’t hold them up for much longer, and if the Monsters get out, we’re going to die!”

“I’m aware of that, Alice—and I know, we’re a team and we’ve got to work like a team and all that, but I need to see Eliot at least just this once before we go do the stupidest shit we’ve ever done. Please, just hang on for a little longer.”

Alice, understandably frantic about the Monsters, only conceded after Penny placed a hand on her shoulder. While he didn’t know exactly what his friend was feeling, he knew that watching someone be possessed by some crazed entity who has held one of your closest friends’ life in the palm of its hand finally be set free was a big deal. After all, he had to watch Julia writhe in pain.

When Quentin walked up to Eliot’s bed with Margo’s usually stoic—even bitchy as she and others would say—face was contorted with relief and sorrow and worry, he was overcome with a bittersweet feeling. He was happy to see Eliot, yet he was sad that he had to leave him to finish the job and save the human world and Fillory from absolute destruction.

“Uh, Margo?” he softly and gently said to her.

“You want to talk with him, Coldwater?” she asked, trying to hide the fact that she had probably been crying since they got to the hospital. “Don’t you have a world to save?”

“I do, but—b-but I just need a little time…”

Margo wasn’t reluctant or hesitant to give Quentin and Eliot the isolation the former wanted. She was so exhausted; she wasn’t used to showing so much emotion. It was as she had told Fen in Fillory: If she started crying now, there was no way in hell she could stop. But she respected that he wanted to see him before entering the Mirror World. She knew that Quentin was as important to Eliot as she was to him and vice versa.

“Quentin…” she started but stopped herself. The lump in her throat choked her up, and she just rushed away.

So there they were. Among other patients yet still in their own little bubble. Quentin took a seat next to Eliot’s bed, and at first, he thought he was unconscious. Then the tired eyes enshrouded by dark circles fluttered open. He had been listening to Margo sob next to him, but he hadn’t the energy to talk to her other than to have quietly called her Bambi. As Quentin sat with him, they just stared at him.

“Q…” he drawled, most likely still drugged by the pain medications that helped him to withstand the aching in his abdomen. “You came to see me…before tossing that asshole?”

“You knew about that?” Quentin chuckled lightly.

“Margo has gotten in touch with her feelings, and she kind of told me everything.”

“So, you were awake.”

“Not…Not completely.”

Quentin knew that he only had a short time—a few minutes at most—before everyone casting the spell would be pushed to their limit. He took hold of Eliot’s hand.

“Eliot, I’m glad you’re back. I’m glad that you’re alive. I’m just—I’m really sorry that we don’t have time to sit and talk now, but things should be better when we get back from the Mirror World.”

“It’s okay, Q. I mean, you’ve saved all our asses before.” Eliot propped himself up, a sting in his stomach making him wince but otherwise reminding him that his body as his own again. “Hey, Quentin…I…” he looked at him dubiously. “I never told you this…but when I was trapped in my mind with the most annoying ghost thing in my head, I had to do some soul-searching and…”

It was much different telling what he was going to say to his face rather than a memory. Eliot always struggled with commitment because he got scared at the thought, but confessing to his memory of Quentin had saved him. And he still regretted waving the idea of being together with him.

“I did some retro-introspection, and…”

“Proof of concept?” Quentin said with a little smile.

“Peaches and plums and fifty years of a life between us.”

Alice hurried up to him, fear and urgency evident in her countenance. “Quentin, we need to go. The wards can’t last much longer,” she said. She looked at both Eliot and Quentin, gulping yet standing her ground that they had leave for the Mirror World at that moment. “I’m sorry.” She was rigid, and Quentin wasn’t sure if she was merely jealous of Eliot or if she was trying to finish the job and get rid of the Monsters. She clenched her fists, only relaxing when Quentin told her that he was just about to leave.

“Eliot, when I get back, let’s talk about it, okay?”

“You won’t forget, will you? Because I’m kind of bedridden at the moment, so you better come back,” he joked. “There’s a lot we need to catch up on.”

Quentin looked down, grinned, then looked back up at him. His dark eyes were smiling—genuinely smiling for the first time in a long, long time. He was happy to have Eliot back, and he would be happier once the threat of the Monster was erased and they could close the book on this arc of their lives.

**Author's Note:**

> Once you know how it ends, it's really hard to just...act like it doesn't happen, you know? Brb, I'm going to listen to Lizard Eliot sing for the 1000th time.


End file.
